Heath House - Table of Contents .......................
F. L. Wright in
Buffalo - Table of Contents
William Heath House
76 Soldiers Place, Buffalo, New
York
Erected: |
1904-1905 |
Architect: |
Frank Lloyd Wright |
Style: |
Prairie |
See
also: |
Soldiers
Place - Address Renumbering |
1911 photo by Ernst Wasmuth. Source: HABS |
Source: HABS |
Living Room. Source: HABS |
Street on right is Bird Avenue. Prairie features |
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Frank
Lloyd Wright in Buffalo, NY - LINKS |
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Prairie feature: broad, flat chimney |
Art glass window. Many of the first floor windows are of clear glass. |
Hipped roofs |
William Heath was a lawyer who served as office manager and eventually as a vice-president of the Larkin Company. Mrs. Heath was the sister of Elbert Hubbard, a former Larkin Company executive who retired in 1893 to establish, a few years later, the Roycroft Arts and Crafts community in nearby East Aurora.
Heath was introduced to Wright by fellow Larkin executive Darwin D. Martin.The Heath commission presented Frank Lloyd Wright with the problem of situating a substantial prairie house, with its characteristically open structure, on a deep, narrow lot alongside Bird Avenue. In order to ensure a measure of privacy, Wright placed the house right up against the sidewalk (thus opening the rear of the house to a private lawn), elevated the principal living spaces well above the eye level of the passerby, and treated the broad chimney, tiny entry, and stained-glass windows as screening devices. Privacy does prevail, although the splendid window patterns draw attention rather than avert it.
The Heath house is a precursor to Wright's renowned Robie house in Chicago (1909) where, on a similarly narrow streetside lot, Wright stuck an even more daring balance between cantilevered roofs and subtly adjusted screening mechanisms.
Sources:
- "Buffalo Architecture: A Guide." Cambridge: MIT Press, 1981
- Classic Buffalo: A Heritage of Distinguished Architecture, by Richard O. Reisem
- HABS: W. R. Heath House (online Oct. 2015)
Image courtesy of Explore Buffalo